Quote:
Originally Posted by Exhibitman
It is definitely NOT about just damaging the PWCC brand. Taking a dump on a competitor to damage their brand is called "trade libel" (publication of matter disparaging the quality of another’s property, which the publisher should recognize is likely to cause pecuniary loss to the owner. The tort encompasses ‘all false statements concerning the quality of services or product of a business which are intended to cause that business financial harm and in fact do so. (City of Costa Mesa v. D’Alessio Investments,LLC (2013) 214 Cal.App.4th 358, 376) and if a $10 billion company does it just to thwart a competitor it will find itself on the receiving end of a massive lawsuit. The fact that eBay did what it did publicly and loudly means that it has solid evidence in hand sufficient to allow their corporate counsel to greenlight a statement that is otherwise textbook trade libel.
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How can you possibly say that it is "definitely NOT that" though? I assume you're a lawyer. Pay attention to the language used in that email. Their claim is that "individuals associated with PWCC engaged in shill bidding". That's a remarkably broad statement that could easily just mean that people who consigned with PWCC bid on their own auctions. Surely, their legal team carefully crafted that email so as to avoid any such lawsuits. If they had proof that PWCC employees were the ones doing the shill bidding, then why not just say so? After all, as you said, surely they wouldn't make such a claim without proof. But they in fact did not make such a claim. Probably because they did not have such proof.
To walk away from that email and assume that eBay meant anything other than people who consigned with PWCC would be jumping to conclusions based on assumptions. If that is in fact who eBay was referring to when they said "individuals associated with", then I think what they did should be criminal and that it should be considered trade libel. I'm also of the belief, based on my experiences with eBay and the experiences of several of my friends who have worked there (some of whom were executives) that this is most likely what happened.